


Toska

by hitlikehammers



Series: and love alive (or: The Ongoing Saga of the Belarusian Bros) [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Happy Ending, Homecoming, Longing, Love, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 17:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1655918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i><b>toska</b>, тоска (n): the desire for somebody or something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness; spiritual anguish; an ache of the soul.</i>
</p><p><i>Go home</i>, he'd said. The Soldier listens; does exactly that.</p><p>Phil taking his <i>own</i> advice, though: whether or not that's a good idea remains to be seen.</p><p>  <span class="small">Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1604633">Matryoshka</a>, in which Bucky Barnes and Phil Coulson unwittingly share a drink.</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Toska

**Author's Note:**

> Continued thanks to the incredible [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad) for being a gem and looking this over <3
> 
> Title and consequent summary definition are entirely credited to [Vladimir Nabokov](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309633-toska---noun-t--sk---russian-word-roughly-translated-as).

Phil remembers Budapest being different from what he finds, what he gets.

Apparently everyone remembers Budapest differently, though. So, that’s good.

But Phil remembers the look in Clint’s eyes, too, when he meets them, when they’re face to face and Phil can’t get the air in his lungs to stop sticking, to stop catching: Phil remembers the look there, remembers what it means, what it used to mean, and there’s a twisting in his chest that makes him want to wretch, want to scream, want to break, because he’s afraid that this isn’t different, that this hasn’t changed.

He’s afraid that the look in Clint’s eyes right now means exactly what it always had, always did.

Phil’s tongue tastes iron for the way he bites his cheek, trying to steady, trying to center, trying to bring it all to bear on this moment, this moment when he needs to speak, needs to bridge the only gap worth crossing so that he can feel, so that he hold, so that he can touch and sink and _be_ because all he can think of is the way Clint always fit into the crook of his neck and fuck, _fuck_ , he _cannot_ think about that being different.

He just _can’t_.

Phil’s tongue tastes iron before his mouth starts to move, before his heart can slow, before his breath can even: Phil’s tongue tastes blood before he knows what he’ll do if the void can’t be closed.

“I’m sorry,” Phil exhales in a whirlwind, in a mess: “That’s the big thing, isn’t it? The important thing?” And he lets it tumble, lets it fall out without any trimming, without tailoring it or reining it in: he lets the words come on every coursing pump of heat in his veins, of hope and fear and the godforsaken bliss of Clint here, of Clint real and living and _standing_ so close, so goddamned _close_.

“I’m sorry, I should have told you, I should have found a way to tell you, and fuck the consequences, fuck the risks, I should have and I didn’t, because I was, I’m, fuck, _Clint_ ,” Phil’s voice breaks, and his lungs snag against the cracks as he murmurs, chokes: 

“I’m _sorry_.”

And he is. He’s not sorry that he tried to play the hero, but he’s sorry it didn’t do any damned good. He’s not sorry he tried to keep Clint safe with distance, but he’s sorry for the lies.

He’s not sorry Clint’s here, but he’s sorry—so very, very sorry—that Clint’s so far, that there’s so much space between them.

Phil’s sorry, god.

He’s _sorry_.

“Clint,” Phil breathes, croaks because there’s a statue watching him without any feeling, there’s a gaze upon him that feels blank, that feels like a void in itself waiting to strike, waiting to add to the emptiness that’s growing, that’s pushing on the heart in Phil’s chest and compressing on the lungs to make it ache, to make the ribs feel small, and what was he thinking, what is he _doing_ : this jeopardizes them both, and more than that, who does Phil think he is, what does Phil think he has, what does he think he can offer that would make up for the lies, for the hurt, the betrayal that’s clear because this is what Clint looks like when he’s seething, when he’s hurting, when the tenuous trust he offers, all fiberglass and filigree and so fucking _fleeting_ : when that trust catches the wrong breath on a breeze so it cracks and cuts on the way down, that’s what it looks like, that’s what _he_ looks like—wide eyes that reflect rather than invite, soft lips that flatten and pull, and the skin of him, the skin so pale and what was Phil _thinking_ , acting on a whim, so fucking _selfish_ , so fucking stupid, and what had Phil expected, taking his cue from a stranger in a bar in the middle of nowhere who may or may not have saved and killed and lived and died and—

Phil sucks in a deep breath, air thin and frail as he looks up, feels the gravity, the presence of a body near him, a body he knows, and Phil is intimately familiar with what Clint Barton looks like when something perfect in him breaks.

It’s like this, it’s just like _this_ , except—

Except when Clint takes a hit, he steels, goes solid, turns cold.

And this man, this body, this _soul_ standing in front of Phil, now, so close, so goddamned _close_ is all trembling kinesis and arrested momentum—all gaping holes and open wounds. This Clint is heat so strong Phil can feel it, can feel himself swaying toward it without knowing, without thinking: this Clint’s pulse Phil can count at the side of his neck.

This Clint that he finds here, that he gets before him close enough to fall into, to pull close and meld against until all he feels is the burn of it, all he tastes is the residual warmth: this Clint is different.

And Phil can’t fucking swallow for the way it all seems to balance on a knife’s edge, on a thread.

“Jesus Christ.”

And it’s a raw thing, a thing like a gasp but less, and Phil can taste Clint’s breath against him and it’s like dying—it’s just like dying except where it slips, it feels sure.

Where it breaks, it feels right.

“You never,” and at this distance, in this space, Phil can see it, can see the width of Clint’s pupils and the way the cloudy shade’s gone sharp, gone deep around them, rings of water and ether and light and everything that Phil’s missed, everything a pair of lips on some black and white close-circuit feeds couldn’t give him—Phil can see it, here, can see it in the way Clint’s hand, those steady hands that never falter, Phil can see the way they shake when he reaches, but doesn’t dare to touch.

“You never sound like yourself,” Clint rasps, and his eyes shine, catch the light as he breathes, all heavy, too uneven, and Phil can feel it catch in his own chest, because he’s seen Clint broken, retrieved him from enough missions gone wrong, but this, whatever it is: this is infinitely worse. 

_This_ is a Clint that Phil doesn’t know, and that’s horrifying. That sits vicious, like acid in his gut.

“When I,” Clint starts, mouth moving without any words, sounds keening in the back of his throat and Phil wants, _wants_ to lean forward to suck them free, take them away from this man he’s hurt, this man he _needs_. “In my,” Clint breathes, and blinks, and Phil wants but thinks he’s lost that right.

He’s lost so many things, precious things, and it’s his own fucking fault.

He let himself _stay_ lost.

But no more.

“You never sound right,” Clint whispers, the lightest of sounds, and Phil shivers with the murmurs before he shivers for the touch, for the ghost of Clint’s fingers on his cheek and the whimper that escapes him as his wrist jangles, trembles against the line of Phil’s jaw.

“But you sound _right_ ,” Clint tells him, marvels, _aches_ , and his words are warm on Phil’s skin, and the sound of Phil’s heart is rapid fire and no fucking cover, and when Clint’s thumb finds the beat of it, Phil’s eyes slide closed. 

“You’re,” Clint’s voice breaks, and when he buries his face in Phil’s neck without prelude it’s a fucking godsend, it’s quintessential heartbreak, and Phil knows what being reborn means, but he never got to remember how it could _feel_.

 _Jesus_.

“God, you smell the same,” Clint exhales, nearly sobs for the way his chest shakes against Phil’s, pressed flush where it belongs, where he’s always belonged.

And Phil has to stop himself, hold himself back from leaning, from taking Clint’s face in his hand and pressing their mouths together. He has to stop himself, because he can’t make that leap, he can’t force this thing, he’s got no _right_ —

Clint tastes the same. His mouth is as warm as it ever was, the lines of his teeth haven’t changed a bit, the give of his lips are as maddening as they’ve ever been in Phil’s mind, against his flesh, but fuck: he tastes _exactly_ the _same_.

“I’m fucking pissed at you,” Clint tongues, reckless and violent and close, so close as he sucks, gasps, collides with Phil’s mouth until they’re falling inward, until they’re both so intent on drawing something vital from the lips they ravage that they nearly come undone entirely. 

“You don’t know how it, how I,” Clint catches Phil’s bottom lip between his lips and suck until the blood pools beneath the surface, until Phil’s pulse threatens to burst it forth. “You _can’t_ know—”

“I’ve missed you,” Phil pants, open-mouthed against Clint’s parted lips. “I’ve _missed_ you.”

And there’s so much there, so much said beneath what’s said, and Phil hopes, Phil _prays_ that Clint can still hear it, all of it: that that’s not a thing that’s changed.

And Clint stills, and something settles, and even when he speaks, it’s not hateful, it’s not the vilification it could be.

“I’ve mourned you,” and it’s more of a statement, more of a piece of Clint’s soul that’s torn itself loose so that it’s frayed, and Phil thinks that maybe, just maybe, it’s there for him to take in his hand, to face and own and hold close to the heat between them, to the shame within him, until the open veins of it are cauterized, until the ends of it are tied.

Maybe.

Clint exhales shaky, breaks the still that settles and leans his forehead into Phil’s.

“Don’t make me do it again, Coulson,” he breathes, growls, begs: “You understand me?”

Phil tries not to fracture with the weight, the lightness of relief as he gasps out until the skin at Clint’s collarbone is slick with it, and if he shakes, if they both shake and grasp and seek, well.

Phil spares a thought for Brooklyn, and thinks it’s possible these things are earned.  
________________________________________________

The number’s right. He knows it’s right.

Bucky knows because he’s spent a great deal of time—too much time, but not enough, what if it’s not _enough_ —but he’s spent a great deal of time sorting through facts, sorting through scraps of fact, just the smallest hints of what-ifs and maybes that point toward truths rather than lies, that separate the soldier from the Soldier, that remind him there was sun, once, long before there was ice.

That there was warmth, once: warmth, and a smile that made his heart feel too big, that made his skin tingle and his ribs ache.

The number of this building, of the door inside this building, it’s right.

The Winter Soldier rarely lost a target, true.

But Bucky Barnes never failed to know _exactly_ where Steve Rogers is, where Steve Rogers breathes: Bucky Barnes knows his center like he knows the heft of his own bones.

This is the right place. He knows that.

He still can’t bring himself to knock.

Bucky glances upward, and it’s all clouds catching human light, and it’s comforting while it’s sad and that’s his world, isn’t it: that’s what his life is made of now, in the after.

Comfort that, when it comes, still hurts. It’s well deserved, he thinks.

More than.

He feels Steve behind him: less from instinct, less because of the way his body is honed to the movements of bodies around it and more because his heart’s already pounding, like it knows.

Yeah; it knows.

“The air’s different,” he exhales, eyes closed, neck craned back to the stars where they can’t be seen and the breath itself is different, too.

Steve’s voice is soft—is wracked with sickness and tight with frustration and breathless for the betrayal of his tiny little lungs; is strong with conviction and gentle as he eases him from the brink into arms thicker, firmer than they’d ever been; is a scream into a chasm, and the echoes of a scream: is heartbreak, maybe, on a rooftop, in a street; resignation and then the stilted moan, all waterlogged, that breaks everything, broke everything, but that’s how you rebuild, Bucky knows it now, you rebuild when there are only pieces, when there’s nowhere left to stand.

Steve’s voice is the same as it ever was: a knife in his gut, a heat in his heart.

“Buck?”

Bucky’s mouth twists—upward, fuck, and isn’t that nice, isn’t that new; Bucky’s mouth twists up, because the name sounds like _his_ coming from Steve’s lips; like there wasn’t ever any doubt.

He doesn’t deserve it; doesn’t deserve the way it floats in his blood like wonder and hope and all the maybes he’d spent too long without.

He doesn’t deserve it, but Christ, he can’t give it up; he can’t walk away, he can’t keep from wanting, from _needing_.

He can’t keep an ocean, an island, a hairsbreadth between them, much as he knows it’ll damn him in the end.

“It used to be,” Bucky murmurs, considering the air again—considering anything but the air. “I dunno,” he glances at Steve just as he says, just as he speaks, just as he asks: “Smoother?”

He glances at Steve as he speaks because he knows, he’s anticipating the way those eyes steal the breath from his lungs—anticipates it, but still isn’t ready when their gazes meet and something in him snaps, gives way entirely. 

And he’s not ready, it’s too much, it’s too soon, he needs more time, more time to figure it out, to fill the cracks, to make sense and be okay, he’s not _ready_ —

But he’s never been ready; he’s _never_ been ready.

Bucky’s never been ready for the prospect of hurting Steve, of losing Steve.

He’s never been ready.

But Steve, though: Steve was always what made him brave enough to fight fate and inevitability and all the hate and horror he could stand.

Steve was always enough to make him brave, to make him stand and fight against the tide he can’t abide; will not survive intact.

And there’s Steve, here and now. There’s Steve.

So he’ll fight.

He breathes, then, and Steve breathes, and it’s smoother, suddenly.

Steve makes it smoother.

“I’ve spent a lot of time,” Bucky says, and it only catches on the ends. “Too much time, not having a choice. Not being able,” he shakes his head, and breathes: breathes smooth air and focuses not on the world through a scope but the world in broad daylight, in full color.

“Not being strong enough to say what I wanted,” he gets out, grits out against the shame of it, the weight of it, and the bubbling hope that might be more hateful than the heaviness, than the dark: the hope that maybe, _maybe_ ; “To fight what I didn’t...”

He trails off, and maybe: maybe the way Steve’s gaze takes him in, the way Steve barely blinks, the way Steve inhales deep, but quick, and Bucky can almost feel the tension between them shivering with the force, with the pounding of their blood—

 _Maybe_.

He can do this.

“And now,” Bucky swallows, rough; and again. “Now, here I am, making a choice that kills me, that _kills me_ , Steve.” 

He meets Steve’s eyes and there’s something there he barely dares to name, that nearly breaks what’s left of him, what’s left of his capacity to stand apart, to not run back or run towards, that nearly does him in. 

“And on top of that,” Bucky exhales, murmuring to the pavement, the chipping stones beneath his feet: “I’m taking away your choice at the same goddamned time.”

“Bucky,” Steve says it, the name that’s _his_ ; “what are you—”

“You’re it.”

Because that’s what started this, what led him here: what led him not just from a hole in Eastern Europe but from a lifetime of death and cold.

He looks up, but doesn’t dare to meet Steve’s eyes again, not yet. He stares beyond him, latches onto the dim glow of a street lamp beyond and breathes; breathes.

Speaks.

“You’re it,” he says, as low and clear and true as he can, as it feels in his throat, in his chest, in his veins. “You’re everything, you are the _only_ thing that sticks, that stays, and I kept away because I’m broken,” he chokes, and the words crack in agreement, a testament to that truth: “Because the blood on my hands won’t ever go away, and there’s no amount of good I could ever do that washes it clean, that brings those people, those _innocents_ back and you deserve more than that, you deserve better, because you are better, you are so much _better_ —”

Whatever comes next, though, dies beneath his tongue, behind his teeth, because there’s warmth, there’s life, there’s a smoothness between the calluses, between the patches of a life harder than that skinny punk from Brooklyn ever deserved, harder than Bucky’d ever wanted for him, than Bucky’d ever wanted to leave him to withstand, to face alone—but there’s smoothness, and a tightness that singes through his ribs, that sings in the hollow parts of his thumping heart and makes them echo, like they’re bigger than they’ve got a right to be.

Whatever comes next is Steve’s hands on his jaw and Steve’s gaze on his face and Steve’s breath on his skin and Steve: just Steve.

Bucky breathes, or else, he tries to.

Steve’s thumb strokes slow against his cheek.

“What?” Bucky rasps, and it’s a shaky thing, a thing that’s broken but thinks maybe it doesn’t have to be for much longer, won’t ever have to be again.

“You really did take all the stupid with you,” Steve murmurs, and it’s sweet, dear god, but it’s sweet. “You fucking idiot.”

And Bucky looks at him, really looks because Steve’s there, and Steve’s chests bumps his own when they both breathe in, and when he looks he sees what Steve’s never tried to hide, what Steve’s always worn on his sleeve, no matter how high from the ground it stood: Bucky sees it, sees _him_ , and what breath he might have been fighting to take is sucked straight from his lungs at the size of it, the strength of it, the weight of it.

The _love_.

“ _You’re_ it, Buck,” Steve whispers, fierce and full and it feels just the same as it rattles through all the cool places in Bucky’s body, in Bucky’s soul, sweeps the dust from his being and give him back the light.

“Always have been, always will be.” Steve’s thumb trails, rests like a feather against the dip above Bucky’s lips, and he leans: maybe they both lean.

“‘Til the end of the goddamned line,” Steve breathes, and there’s a question in his eyes but not his voice, never his voice, because the promise there is unconditional, is absolutely sure, but the feel of his breath against Bucky’s lips is an invitation, is all askance and no demands.

Bucky didn’t think the world still held this kind of presence; Bucky didn’t think miracles existed anymore.

They both lean.

And for all that’s different, for all that’s dream versus truth versus nightmare, Bucky Barnes remembers the taste of Steve’s mouth, the shape of his lips, the give of that flesh. He remembers that in the small parts, the safe parts of all that he is.

And for all that they’re not different, this, _them_ : this is different. This is desperate and aching and maybe a little bit perfect.

Maybe a little bit better.

“I didn’t mean to forget,” Bucky gasps against Steve’s parted lips, grasping tight against his shoulders: bruising, if Steve can still bruise. “I’d never forget if I could help it.”

“Not your fault,” Steve exhales, pressing his mouth to Bucky’s forehead, quick and sheer before he joins their mouths again, more shared breathing, shared life and form and matter than a kiss, and that’s what seals it, really—that’s what almost makes Bucky believe: “Never your fault, Buck.”

Bucky slides his arms upward, twines around Steve’s neck and pulls him closer, impossibly so, until it hurts to breathe but _fuck_ , there’s never been a better pain.

“I,” Steve pulls back, and the sound Bucky makes is one he didn’t know he was capable of: a keen that shivers up from the core of him, a need that resonates and reverberates and carries far. Steve’s hands on him are firm, though, like he’s just as unwilling to break, to leave, to lose.

So it’s okay. It’ll be okay.

“I didn’t mean to let you fall,” Steve says softly, thin like ice with the ocean below, and that’s wrong, that’s wrong: not _Steve_. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Steve continues, and he’s small, Bucky can see the facts that aren’t facts any longer but were, will always leave a mark and Bucky needs to protect, needs to keep safe, no matter what, and as Steve floods with apologies and shakes with the weight of them on his bones, on his soul, Bucky knows what he has to do deeper, more sure than he knows anything else.

“I tried, but I wasn’t—” Steve cuts off as Bucky kisses the words from his mouth, and Steve meets the press of his lips with a frantic kind of feeling that makes Bucky feel dizzy, feel weak in the best of all ways.

“ _Never_ your fault,” Bucky turns those words around, and flattens his hands on Steve’s chest, wondering if he’s close enough, if he presses deep enough, if he can push the truth into the cells of this man, this _man_.

“And I don’t want to hear you thinking that it was, not ever again,” Bucky breathes against his skin, but keeps his eyes trained, narrowed to Steve’s wide baby blues, and his throat is tight when he swallows; his heart’s caught there with a death grip that somehow, impossibly, means only life.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t hold on,” Bucky breathes out, dips his head to rest against Steve’s neck. “I’m sorry I couldn’t…”

Steve’s hands are cupped around Bucky’s chin and he holds him, raises their eyes so they meet.

“I don’t want to hear _you_ thinking like _that_ ever again,” Steve throws his words back at him, and Bucky grins, because it was never obvious at first glance, but god: they were two halves of a damned fucked-up whole.

Bucky’s breath catches, at that, the thought of it: a whole.

Being part of a _whole_.

“We’re here,” Steve half gasps, half moans: fully marvels as he draws Bucky into him, as he wraps his arms around Bucky’s frame and pulls him close without all the reservations, without any of the self-preservation that Bucky thinks he warrants, thinks he’s earned where this, _this_ is something he doesn’t deserve, this closeness, this warmth, this unadulterated affection that curls around his bones.

“Fuck, Bucky,” Steve tells the skin of his lips, and Bucky feels it, he feels it: “We’re _here_.”

It’s a prayer full of disbelief; it’s a hope that cuts like silk and crashes like sand and it’s thick in the beat of his pulse—Bucky _feels_ it.

He grasps it as tight as he can.

“It won’t be easy,” Bucky murmurs, tastes the promise on Steve’s mouth, in Steve’s mouth, and meets it with a plea, the last he can offer, the last out he’ll give before he latches, before he holds on tighter than before, stretches where he couldn’t reach. “ _I_ won’t be easy.”

“We’ve never been easy,” Steve tells him, his grin like a balm, like the universe against Bucky’s skin. “Neither one of us. Wouldn’t know what to do if we tried changing that now.”

And Bucky can’t breathe with it, can’t stand for it, but Steve’s got his arms on him, and when he leans in and kisses Steve with everything he’s got, everything he’s ever known—so much he wishes he’d never seen and so much more he wants to learn, here like this: when he kisses Steve he knows it, knows it beneath all the facts and their facsimiles, their twisted manifests of blankness and darkness and cold—he knows.

This isn’t the same, this isn’t what was.

But it has the promise of maybe—just _maybe_ —being _better_.

This has the promise of being so much _more_.

**Author's Note:**

> Still babbling in this vein now and again over on [tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com), if you groove that way.


End file.
